PASADENA >> Oscar-winning screenwriter, actor and LGBT rights activist Dustin Lance Black has accused Pasadena City College administrators of rescinding an invitation for him to be the commencement speaker because of a scandal involving private photos released on the Internet of Black and a former partner.

Black, who graduated from PCC in 1994, posted a letter to PCC students on his blog Friday saying he was disappointed and angered by the college’s decision because he had accepted the invitation to speak more than a month ago.

“I confirmed the invitation, booked the international flights to get back to Southern California, canceled work and turned down paid invitations. This invitation was that meaningful to me,” Black wrote. “This morning, I woke up to the headline that I have been uninvited to speak at my alma mater. The reasoning: That I was involved in a ‘scandal’ in 2009 regarding extremely personal photographs that were put up on Internet gossip sites of me and my ex-boyfriend.”

Black concluded the letter with a request that PCC students speak out on his behalf about a decision by college administrators he claimed was discriminatory.

“As PCC administrators attempt to shame me, they are casting a shadow over all LGBT students at PCC,” Black said. “We will never be worthy of PCC’s praise.”

Board President Anthony Fellow told the PCC Courier, the school’s student newspaper, that he didn’t want Black to speak at graduation because of the sexual photos released online, which Black said were taken from his ex-boyfriend and posted without consent.

“With the porno professor and the sex scandals we’ve had on campus this last year, it just didn’t seem like the right time for Mr. Black to be the speaker,” Fellow told the student newspaper. “We’ll be on the radio and on television. We just don’t want to give PCC a bad name.”

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Fellow did not respond to a request for further comment.

Student Trustee Simon Fraser said he was personally hurt as a student and “queer” individual by administrators’ and board members’ reactions to Black as a possible commencement speaker.

“I know how desperately my community needs role models at Pasadena City College, and we haven’t had them. The district has said in various statements that we support diversity and all people but there’s been little to back up the action,” Fraser said. “As a student I feel personally betrayed and I feel very sad.”

A spokeswoman for the college administration declined to comment on the controversy on Friday.

“Pasadena City College is busy today assembling facts on the chain of events connected with the choice by the college of a commencement speaker,” PCC spokeswoman Valerie Wardlaw posted in a statement on the college’s website Friday. “The college will provide a statement on Monday, April 21, 2014, of what it has learned. It would be inappropriate to comment further on this subject until this review has been conducted.”

Fraser said he sent the email inviting Black to speak at commencement, the same email sent to all those on the short list, at the direction from the administration. Subsequently, he said PCC President Mark Rocha sent an email to trustees saying “the only person on the short list who accepted was a controversial figure.” Fraser said he did not receive the email until after the board meeting.

“The only decision the board has ever actually made has been to approve that short list,” Fraser said. “There has not since been an open meeting and vote taken on who our speaker should be.”

PCC announced this week that it had selected Pasadena Public Health Director Eric Walsh as the graduation speaker, with no mention of an invitation to Black. However, in a PCC Board of Trustees meeting on April 2, Vice President of Academic Affairs Robert Bell said that all but two of the people on the board’s pre-approved list of nominees had declined the invitation. He said he doubted that the final two, Magic Johnson and California Supreme Court Justice Joyce Kennard, would be available, so the college reached out to Walsh instead.

When questioned by board members why two invitations were extended at once, Bell blamed a convoluted college procedure for commencement. Board Member Jeannette Mann pointed to the confusion as a reason that the board planned to revise the policy for next year.

Fraser questioned Bell’s statement at the meeting, but Bell did not address Fraser’s question and deferred to Rocha, who said that Bell had followed the college process in selecting a speaker.

“We all agree we want a commencement speaker that can really send off the class with a great idea,” Rocha said. “We can correct that moving forward.”